E 650 
.J75 
Copy ' 



4 



4 



■< 



< 



■< 



ADDRESS 






In. 



of 



H 



AT THE 



I) 







LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE 



OF THE 



MONUMENT 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE 



Confederate Dead 



AT 



BATON ROUGE, 



iTEiBFt.TiAiR.Y 23d, 1886. 



\ 



\ 

I 



Hopkins' Printing Office, T2 Commercial Place, New Orleans. 
1886 . 



4 







:> 



M 



TV C^V C^V 



W}^. 



OF 



J, 



H 



U 




AT THE 



LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE 



OF THE 



MONUMENT 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE 



Confederate Dead 



AT 



BATON ROUGE, 



inEBf^TJAiE^Y 22ci, 1886. 



Hopkins' Printing Office, T2 Commercial Place. New Orleans. 
1886 . 



61503 



>. 



A3 




VN 



Ladies and Gentlemen — We are assembled here 
to-day on no sorrowful occasion, for no ceremony of 



mourning. 



We are not here to bury our heroes. 

Over twenty years have past since the last gun 
was fired in the civil war, and since the last soldier 
who gave his life to the cause which he espoused was 
gathered to his rest. 

The ground furrowed and torn by battle is smooth 
and grass grown and free from scars. The marks of 
fortifications and breastworks have passed away, and 
the thousands of graves of the unknown but not for- 
gotten Confederate dead, which once dotted every 
battle-field of the South, are carpeted by nature and 
forever mingled with the soil. 

The dead are no longer a grief, but a sad and 
glorious memory. The coming of the lost one is no 
longer looked for. The parents who gave their $t£nj; - 
to the cause have grown old and gray, or have gone 
to join their loved ones. The babes the young so KfftVr i 
left behind him, and parted with forever, have grown"" 1 
to manhood. The individual lost one lives only in the 
faded portrait or in the time-worn and carefully pre- 
served newspaper, which tells of his departure for the 
war, full of patriotic resolve and hope, or chronicles 
his death in his country's cause, or he lingers as a holy 
memory in the hearts of those who loved him. But 
the memory of the Confederate soldiers who gave their 
lives to the defense of the cause which they believed 
to be that of their country will be honored by those 
who survive them, and those who are to come after 
them, as long as patriotism, bravery and devotion shall 
be recognized as virtues among- men. 

Individual and private grief has been soothed by 
the lapse of time, and we meet now to honor, not to 
mourn, over the Confederate dea d. 



The monument of which you lay the corner-stone 
to-day will be built in commemoration of no particular 
chieftain or hero, although you sent many from your 
midst well deserving of such honor, but in memory of 
a class whose patriotism, self-sacrificing devotion and 
heroism command the admiration of the people from 
whose bosom they went forth, as in time to come they 
will command the respect and reverence of all Amer- 
icans. 

The monument which is to be erected by the pa- 
triotic ladies and citizens of Baton Rouge in memory 
of the Confederate soldiers from the Florida parishes 
who died in the war will one day be regarded by all 
Americans with the same pride and veneration as the 
monuments in your National Cemetery, which do mer- 
ited honor to the heroes lying there who died on the 
other side. 

The scars left by civil war soon heal and fade 
away, as does the memory of the privations and suffer- 
ings which it entailed. The angry controversies which 
precede and the bitterness which follows pass away 
with the generation whose quarrels necessitated the 
stern arbitrament of war. New generations of peo- 
ple of the same blood come together as companions in 
the same walks of life, and join together in the same 
aims, aspirations and ambitions, forgetful or regard- 
less of the quarrel which divided their fathers, the 
causes for which have passed into history. 

No people are more national, patriotic, and devo- 
ted in their love of country than the English ; yet how 
often in their history have they been divided and torn 
asunder by civil war — the red and white roses of Lan- 
caster and York, the wars of d)masty between Planta- 
ganet and Tudor, the wars of Puritan and Cavalier, of 
Stuart and Hanover; quarrels of succession, and quar- 
rels of religion, issues between feudal despotism and 
budding liberty, between the divine right of princes 
and the natural born rights of man, which divided the 



English people again and again, and in the support of 
which issues, on either side, thousands of good men 
and true died on the battlefield, or on the block. 

In the hot and unreasoning controversies of those 
days the defeated were denounced for treason, and 
died as traitors; yet who calls them traitors now? The 
descendants of their leaders sit side by side in the 
House of Peers. The blood of their followers is min- 
gled and confused in the veins of Englishmen. 

In the halls of old English castles and manor 
houses hang side by side the equally honored portraits 
of ancestors, paternal and maternal, who fought for the 
red or white rose, for Cromwell or Charles Stuart, for 
William of Orange or James II. for George of Hano- 
ver or the Pretender; and in the old cathedrals and 
churches of England, monuments of sculptured stone 
commemorate the virtues and valiant deeds of the 
country's heroes who fought on either side. 

How often has France been the theatre of civil 
war? 

Almost within the memory of living men, a ven- 
erable monarchy overthrown, followed by a saturnalia 
of blood and anarchy; a so-called republic, a consulate, 
an empire, whose glories will always be the proudest 
boast of Frenchmen, though bought with oceans of 
blood and millions of treasure; a restoration of the an- 
cient Kings; a revolution and a liberal monarchy; a 
revolution again and a republic; a coup d'etat and 
once more an empire. Each time war, each time pro- 
scription. Each government enforced and maintained 
by military power, and yet when the last empire went 
down in war with Germany, when her armies were de- 
feated and her territory overrun, France became one 
people, a nation of Frenchmen, no matter whether they 
had been Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists or Re- 
publicans. 

For centuries, what is now called Germany was 
the battle ground of civil war. 



In 1866, in the Austro-Prussian war, its States 
were divided and in hostile armies. Bavaria, Saxony, 
Wurtemburg, Hanover, the free cities, fought with 
Austria and were defeated with her, and were made 
unwilling and unloving members of the German Em- 
pire. But when in 1870 they were called to arms to 
fight their historic enemy, and to revenge the defeats 
which the lapse of seventy-five years had not enabled 
them to forget, then they became Germans in fact as 
well as in name, and buried forever all remembrance of 
their old quarrels and jealousies in the glories won by 
the common armies of the German nation under the 
banner of the German Empire. 

In our own country the time has arrived when the 
hateful memories of the war can no longer be evoked 
to excite political prejudice or passion. 

The survivors, old soldiers on either side, fratern- 
ize together on all occasions and " fight their battles 
o'er again' with mutual pride in the valor of their 
countrymen. They lend assistance to deck the graves 
of their departed antagonists and aid each other in 
honoring the memory of their dead. In the meanwhile 
a new generation has grown to manhood who believe 
that these events belong to history and have no part 
to play in the active business or politics of the present 
hour. 

The history of the war has not yet been written and 
probably will not be until the grass has grown over the 
graves of all who participated in it. The passions and 
prejudices of thft actors in politics or war, the autobio- 
graphies and controversial papers of the chieftians, mili- 
tary and political, on either side are worthless as history, 
and will be sparingly used as material by the future his- 
torian, who, without prejudice or passion and guided by 
patriotic love of country and admiration for its gallant 
and devoted soldiers of both sections, will do justice to 
both, and while giving all glory and honor to the con- 
querors, from whose crown of victory no Confederate 



soldier would wish to pluck one leaf will at the same 
time vindicate the motives and attest the patriotism of 
the soldiers of the Lost Cause, who sacrificed all but 
honor in its defense, and who sought to preserve that 
honor alone from the dark wreck and ruin which followed 
their defeat. 

I am not here to enter into a discussion of the 
causes of the war, or upon a vindication of those whose 
statesmanship or want of statesmanship brought it about 
This is the domain of history. 

The Confederate soldiers had little to do with the 
causes of the war, and few of them shared in the political 
controversies which preceded it. 

An angry and excited presidential election, in which 
a great number of them were not voters ; the triumph of a 
sectional candidate, who carried all of the Northern States 
and who did not have an electoral ticket or receive a 
vote in the South ; a profound alarm and feeling of ap- 
prehension for the future of the country, which pre- 
vailed throughout the South, and was shared by the 
most conservative and Union-loving men of that section ; 
while those of the more extreme views, perhaps a ma- 
jority, considered that the only safety for the South, its 
liberties and institutions, could be found in immediate 
separation from the Union ; a short, hurried and impas- 
sioned canvass before the people, the issue being narrowed 
clown to immediate secession ©r co-operation ; the election 
of conventions ; the adoption of ordinances of secession ; 
the solemn withdrawal of Senators and Representatives 
from Congress, following the action ot their States ; the 
seizure of the forts and arsenals of the national govern- 
ment; the formation of a provisional government ; the 
firing on Sumter ; the call fo arms, North and South — 
all of these strange things passed with the rapidity of a 
dream, and it seems like a dream as we look back upon 
them after the lapse of twenty-five years. 



8 



And in response to the call a people sprung arms ; 

"And there was mounting in hot haste ; the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 

Went pouring forward with irnpetous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war." 

The roll of drums, the wail of the fife, the hurried 
drill, the military bands playing " Dixie" and the ■' Bon- 
nie Blue Flag," the departure of the youth and man- 
hood for the front, the tears of mothers, sisters and 
wives, the smile of sweethearts, the plaudits of gray- 
headed veterans, the presentation of flags and banners, 
broidered by fair fingers, and 

" Then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago, 

Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts ; and choking sighs, 

Which ne'er might be repeated." 

And so went forth the Southern youth to battle, 
full of hope, inspired with confidence, thinking to re- 
turn conqueror, after a war of ninety days. 

What knew he, or cared he, for the causes of the 
war? His country was imperilled, his State was in 
danger of invasion, an enemy was advancing upon his 
home, and it was his duty to meet and assist to drive 
back the invader. 

"Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die." 

And the ninety summer days were lengthened 
into four long years. And the glamour of war was 
gone, and all of its romance, and in exchange, its bit- 
ter stern realities — the long campaigns, the bloody, in- 
decisive battles, the forced marches, the summer's heat, 
the winter's cold, the privations, the wounds, the sick- 
ness, the prison, the retreat, the defeat, the loss of hope. 
Ah, the sufferings and ills which these men bore 
bravely during those four long years, and as their 
columns wasted from the ravages of disease and death 



9 

they were recruited from home, until nearly all ex- 
cept the occupants of the cradle and the grave had 
gone to the front. And then the war ended, and the 
survivors turned their steps homeward, ragged, wound- 
ed, maimed, gaunt, hungry and hopeless. 

They found their homes dismantled, their families 
scattered and impoverished, their property destroyed 
or confiscated, and gloom and want brooding where 
they had left peace and prosperity. 

They found hard laws and strange rulers, and 
though amnested for their offenses against the govern- 
ment, they found themselves proscribed, and submit- 
ted to the political control of ignorance, dominated by 
cupidity and venality. 

Their struggle for bread was a hard one; that for 
personal freedom and political independence much 
harder. 

In the North, far different was the condition of 
the returning soldier. His homeward march was a 
grand military and civic ovation, in which he was wel- 
comed as his country's savior. With the music of 
bands, amid the roar of artillery, under triumphal 
arches, crowned with laurels and garlanded with hon- 
ors, he was welcomed to his home by neighbors, friends, 
brave men and fair women, who in their patriotic re- 
joicing forgot the personal cost of their country's vic- 
tory, and the blood and treasure which had willingly 
been poured forth to secure it. 

And those who returned not— the gallant Federal 
dead were gathered from their resting places, on 
every hill and in every valley of the South, and carried 
with that honor which was their due by their grateful 
country to the beautiful cemeteries laid out and main- 
tained at the government's expense, and buried with 
military honors, with tombstones and monuments, in 
those lovely cities of the dead, where they will ever re- 
main their country's guests, and in their honored graves 



10 



for generations to come will bear witness to the zeal- 
ous care of a grateful nation for its dead heroes. 

The Confederate dead, save the favored few 
brought to their former homes by the care of loving 
friends, lie where they fell, in battle's front, covered 
by the grass and verdure of twenty years growth, in 
graves unmarked, unknown, tar from home and all 
who loved. 

I make this comparison without bitterness and 
with no desire to criticise. The soldiers who did 
their duty on either side deserved all the honors and 
rewards which their grateful countrymen could be- 
stow upon them. 

I walk through the national cemeteries and the 
quiet ranks of the dead with respect and reverence. 
I honor the sentiment in the nation which thus guards 
and protects the memory of those who died that it 
should live. While serving in the Senate I voted with 
pleasure for every appropriation asked for for the pur- 
pose of beautifying and improving these grounds and 
their monuments. The noble stanzas written by a 
gallant Confederate soldier, now dead, which, cast 
upon enduring metal, adorn their walks and gates, 
thrill my every pulse with sympathy as I gaze upon 
the "bivouac of the dead." But while conceding to 
the fullest extent the honor to the victor, while claim- 
ing nothing from the government for the conquered, 
in pensions for the living or burial for the dead, I yet 
claim for them the ri^ht which belongs to all brave 
men, victor or vanquished, to honor the memory of 
their comrades who died in battle, to erect monumnnts 
over their graves, or in commemoration of their valor, 
devotion and self-sacrifice, though their resting places 
may be unknown and their bivouac not "On fame's 
eternal camping ground." 

The Confederate soldiers (whether right or 
wrong) fought and died for the cause which they be- 
lieved to be true and just. In its defence they 



11 



pledged and gave all that was tendered by their patriot 
fathers in 1776 — their lives, their fortunes, and their 
sacred honor. 

They accepted in good faith the results of the war 
as a decisionjbrever of the questions involved—ques- 
tions which had divided the councils of the country and 
threatened its tranquillity from the very formation of 
the government, and which, perhaps, could never 
have been finally settled except by the stern appeal to 
arms. 

If this be so, we thank Providence that the settle- 
ment came in our day instead of that of our children. 

We have renewed and cemented our devotion to 
the Union, a sentiment which was born and bred in us, 
which was hard to put aside and easy to reassume. 
We are to-day as true and loyal to the government, 
its Constitution and laws, as those whom twenty-five 
years ago we met in battle We complain of no 
change brought about by the war. It emancipated 
the slave and we thank God for his freedom. We 
were not originally responsible for the institution of 
slavery. No one would accept its restoration to-day. 

The questions of the right of secession on the one 
hand, and of the inviolability of the Union on the other, 
as I said, divided our people from the foundation of the 
government. We rejoice, and thank God, that it has 
beett forever settled, that this Union is " inseperable, now 
and forever." 

In its grand historic past we claim our full share ; 
its liberties were won and its institutions established in 
part by the efforts of our fathers. The enjoyment of 
those liberties and the benefit of pure goverment and re- 
publican institutions we desire to preserve as a heritage 
for our children and our children's children. And no 
generation that has gone, and none that is to come, were 
or will be, more devoted in their love of country, more 
jealous of its honor and more ready to do battle and make 
sacrifice in its defense against either domestic foe or for- 



12 

> 

eign enemy than the survivors of the Confederate 
army. 

What they destroyed they have labored to rebuild. 
Where the seeds of hate and rancor were planted by the 
civil war they have cultivated only friendship and p'eace. 
Where ruin and poverty were abroad through the land 
they have restored it to thrift and prosperity. In the 
hour of darkness and gloom they have borne themselves 
with patience and manhood, and when restored to the 
rights of sons, in the home of their fathers, they have 
accepted, with gladness and thanks, and pride, the duties 
and burdens which that restoration imposed. 

They are growing old and gray, Their youngest 
comrades have reached the meridian of life, and each 
day their numbers are lessened, as death calls for his de- 
tail from their roster. They no longer form the govern- 
ing class of the section for which tUey fought. They are 
crowded from the paths of active life by the boys, the 
children, the babies of the war, who have come to man- 
hood, and who have been educated in a struggle for live- 
lihood, not in lessons of hate or revenge. 

In the afternoon of life which has come to them all, 
and with the shadows of evening gathering over most of 
them, they look back through the twenty years of trials 
and struggles in which they have since been engaged to 
the memories of the war, without regret over precious 
years wasted and sacrifices made in vain, but with feel- 
ings of melancholy satisfaction and pride over duty done. 

Whatever history may say of the justice of our 
cause, she can never asperse or blacken the motives of 
those who upheld its banners in battle. We fought neither 
for greed nor conquest, neither for revenge nor power. A 
cause might be a mistaken one, but could be neither un- 
just nor cruel, to whose standard a whole God-fearing 
people rallied ; in whose defense mothers sent their sons, 
wives their husbands, and lovers their betrothed ; to fight 
for which, bishops and ministers, who preached the Gos- 
pel of peace and good will, laid aside their robes and 



13 



donned the habiliments of war — a cause whose support 
enlisted the earnest sympathy, and energy, of nearly 
every true woman and brave man throughout the Con- 
federacy, until the standard went down forever in defeat. 

And now that flag has been furled and put away for 
more than twenty years. The star-spangled banner floats 
all over this land, and bears thirty-eight stars, each repre- 
senting an equal and freedom-loving State. 

Under its folds we are assembled to-day, we sur- 
viving soldiers of the Confederate army, with many of 
those who fought against us as our honored guests, to 
inaugurate a monument to those who fell in battle or 
died in the service on our side. There is nothincr of 
treason, nothing of disloyalty in this. The men whom 
we desire to honor, less fortunate than we, were able 
to illustrate their patriotism only by dying for their 
cause. Had they survived they would have accepted 
the result as we did, and would have battled as cour- 
ageously against poverty and discouragement to restore 
their country to peace and its former prosperity. They 
would as proudly have upheld its banner, and stood as 
ready to do battle in its defense. As departed Ameri- 
can soldiers, their records are as bright, their spirits 
as pure and free from stain, their memories as glori- 
ous in all that speaks of duty nobly done, as if they 
slept as the nation's wards in yonder city of the dead. 

Living, they strove to do their duty. Dead, let no 
one challenge or criticise their motives. They have 
gone to a higher court for judgment. This stone is 
to be raised to commemorate their virtues, and the day 
will come, if it has not already dawned, when those 
virtues will be acknowledged of all men, when the Fed- 
eral soldier and his descendants will stand uncovered 
before this monument, as we bare our heads when we 
pass through their cities of the dead. 

In the beautiful suburbs of Boston, Harvard Col- 
lege, one of the most venerable and distinguished in- 
stitutions of learning in this country, has erected upon 



14 



the college grounds a memorial hall in commemora- 
tion of her sons who fell in the battles of the civil war. 
Marble tablets upon the walls are inscribed with the 
name, residence, rank and regiment of the deceased 
soldier, his class year, and the battle in which he fell. 
And she has placed the names of those who died in 
the Southern cause side by side with the names of those 
who fell fighting for the Union, and the youths who 
are fortunate enough to be educated at old Harvard 
are none the less patriotic or imbued with love of 
country because of this beautiful and fraternal testi- 
monial to the valor of the American soldier. 

I trust and believe that this spirit of liberality will 
spread and become general throughout the land. The 
dead issues of the past will be left for history to deal 
with. The former foemen have clasped hands in last- 
ing friendship, and their future struggle will be one of 
emulation in all that may conduce to the happiness, 
prosperity and glory of their common country. 

What a vista of greatness opens up before us ! 
We' have grown to be a Union of thirty-eight States, 
with sixty millions of people, the proudest and freest 
government ever devised by man ! Who can estimate 
what its future will be, or who can fix a limit to its 
growth in population, wealth, commerce and manufac- 
tures, or its progress in civilization, learning and the 
arts and sciences ? Who can tell how many new stars 
may claim a place upon its banner, or what may be the 
future boundaries of its territory ? 

In all of this magoifioient future we have our part, 
we and our children, and we have also our duties to per- 
form For twenty years we have labored, not only for 
the advancement of our own section, but to add to the 
prosperity aud wealth of our country. If it be yet said, 
in bitterness, of the Southern soldier, that he fought to 
destroy the Union, let it be answered, true, he gave four 
years of his youth to the cause of his section, which he 
believed to be just, but he has given twenty vears of his 



15 



manhood to the service of his country and has rebuilded 
on a firmer and more enduring foundation all that he 
aided to destroy. 

To the future service of his country, its defense in 
war, should war occur, and its advancement in glory, 
prosperity and happiness he devotes his maturer years 
and consecrates his old age, and when the hour for final 
parting comes he will leave these duties as a solemn trust 
to the children who are to take his place. 

This day which you have selected for your ceremony 
is the birthday of the most illustrious of Americans, he 
who is justly styled the " Father of His Country." I 
congratulate you that you have thus honored his mem- 
ory. The South gave him to the nation. The soil of 
the State which gave him birth was the principal theatre 
upon which the great battles of the late war were fought, 
and the roar of the guns and the tread of the contending 
armies reverberated above the grave where he sleeps, in 
thai beautiful spot which has bacome the Mecca of his 
countrymen. In his old age, when retiring forever from 
the honors and cares of public life, he addressed his fel- 
low-countrymen, with the prescience almost of superhu- 
man wisdom, and warned them of the dangers which he 
foresaw in their political future, and admonished them 
where the path of safety could be found. His warnings 
were unheeded; his advice was not followed. Perhaps 
its value and truth could only have been demonstrated 
by bitter experience. We disregarded his solemn warn- 
ings. Whose the fault let us not discuss, but both warn- 
ing and advice are as useful to-day as when given, and 
their value has been proven in the light of a terrible ex- 
perience. Thanks to a beneficent Providence, we are 
again in position to heed and profit by his teachings. 

On this anniversary of his birth, while assembled 
to do honor to his memory, as well as to our departed 
comrades, let us recall some of the patriotic words which 
he addressed to his people nearly ninety years ago. 



16 



"The unity of government," he iSaid, "which consti- 
stutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is 
justly so ; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your 
real independence — the support of your tranquillity at 
home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your pros- 
perity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. 
But as it is easy t© foresee that from different causes and 
from different quarters much pains will be taken, many 
artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the convic- 
tion of this truth ; as this is the point in your political 
fortress against which the batteries of internal and ex- 
ternal enemies will be most constantly and actively 
(though often covertly and insidiously) directed, — it is of 
infinite moment that you should properly estimate the 
immense value of your national union to your collective 
and individual happiness ; that you should cherish a cor- 
dial, habitual and immovable attachment to it ; accus- 
toming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palla- 
dium of your political safety and prosperity ; watching 
for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; discountenanc- 
ing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, 
in any event, be abandoned, and indignantly frowning 
upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any 
portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the 
sacred ties which now link together the various parts. 

" For this you have every inducement of sympa- 
thy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a 
common country, that country has a right to concen- 
trate your affections. The name of American, 
which belongs to yon in your national capacity, must 
always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than 
appellations derived from local discriminations. With 
slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, 
manners, habits and political principles. You have, 
in a common cause, fought and triumphed together; 
the independence and liberty you possess are the work 
of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common dan- 
gers, sufferings and successes. But these considera- 
tions, however powerfully they address themselves to 



17 

your sensibility, are generally outweighed by those 
which apply more immediately to your interest ; here 
every portion of our country finds the most command- 
ing motives for carefully guarding and preserving the 
union of the whole, 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with 
the South, protected by the equal laws of a common 
government, finds in the productions of the latter 
great additional resources of maritime and commer- 
cial enterprise, and precious materials of manufac- 
turing industry. The South, in the same intercourse 
benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agri- 
culture grow and its commerce expanded. Turning 
partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, 
it finds its particular navigation invigorated ; and 
while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and 
increase the general mass of the national navigation, 
it looks forward to the protection of a maritime 
strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The 
East, in like intercourse with the West, already finds, 
and in the progressive improvement of interior com- 
munication, by land and water, will more and more 
find, a valuable vent for the commodities which each 
brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The 
West'derives from the East supplies requisite to its 
growth or comfort, and what is perhaps of still great- 
er consequence, it must, of necessity, owe the secure 
enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own pro- 
ductions to the weight, influence and the maratime 
strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed 
by an indissoluble community of interests as one na- 
tion. Any other tenure by which the West can hold 
this essential advantage, whether derived from its 
own separate strength or from an apostate and un- 
natural connection with any foreign power, must be 
intrinsically precarious. 

" While, then, every part of our country thus feels 
an immediate and particular interest in union, all the 
parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united mass 



18 

of means and efforts, greater strength, greater re- 
source, proportionably greater security from external 
danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by 
foreign nations; and what is of inestimable value, 
they must derive from union exemption from those 
broils and wars between themselves, which so fre- 
quently afflict neighboring countries not tied together 
by the same government: which their own rivalship 
alone would be sufficient to produce, but which op- 
posite foreign alliances, atachments and intrigues, 
would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they 
will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military 
establishments, which, under any form of govern- 
ment, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
reguarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty: 
in this sense it is that your union ought to be consid- 
ered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the. love 
of one ought to endear to you the preservation of the 
other." 

In this hour of patriotic feeling and devotion, let 
us treasure these words which come down to us from 
a former generation, and which speak to us with the 
inspiration of prophecy. 

If the teachings of Washington have been disre- 
garded in the past, let us cherish them now in our 
hearts and hold them ever in reverence as the guides 
of our future action. 

Let us teach them to our children, in order that 
they may value and preserve their priceless heritage 
of freedom, liberty and pure government. 

And now fellow-citizens and fellow-comrades, in 
conclusion : 

In what little I have said to-day I have referred 
to the Confederate soldier and the Confederate dead 
as classes; I have referred to no individuals. I see 
around me gallant representatives of nearly every reg- 
iment and military organization which Louisiana sent 
to the field; I recognize the faces of men who distin- 
guished themselves in high command, and whose names 



19 



are proudly enrolled upon the history of their^State. 
I recognize many others equally heroic and self-sacri- 
ficing who fought in the ranks with distinguished gal- 
lantry, and who, if they carved no name in history for 
themselves, at least secured glory and undying fame 
for the regiment or battalion under whose flag they 
fought. 

In memory, I see again these regiments and bat- 
talions starting for the front, with music and banners 
and all the panoply of war, and memory brings back 
to me, and to all of you, the recollection of loved faces 
and brave hearts of many who were marching in the 
ranks, and who are absent from our gathering to-day, 
who will respond to lifes roll call no more forever — 
who are memories now. Of those whom to-day we 
honor. We cannot strew flowers upon their scattered 

A. 

graves ; we cannot mark their unknown resting places 
with stone or monument; we cannot gather their 
earthly spoil into beautiful mausoleums, or cities of 
the dead, but we erect this monument in their honor 
that all people in all time to come may know that the 
soldiers who died for the Confederate cause are not 
without love and honor and reverence in the land 
which gave them birth: 

' ' Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead, 

Dear as the blood ye gave, 
No impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave ; 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps, 
Or Honor points the hallowed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 

" Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, 

la deathless song shall tell, 
When many a vanished age hath flown, 

The story how ye fell; 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, 

Nor Time's remorseless doom, 
Shall dim one ray of glory's light, 

That gilds your deathless tomb." 






LIBRARY OF CONGRES! 



013 764 576 2 



